1. Technical Field
The embodiments described herein generally relate to a system and method for programming keys to a vehicle to establish primary and secondary drivers.
2. Background Art
With conventional automotive vehicles, one or more keys are often shared between any number of drivers. For example, the parents of a teenager (or young adult) that is old enough to drive may share the keys for the vehicle with the teenager. The vehicle may be equipped with various safety and/or driver notification features that may be enabled/disabled via a user interface based on the driver's needs. However, in some circumstances, the parent may not intend to have the various safety and notification related features disabled by the teenager. The parent may enable the safety and notification features prior to allowing the teenager to drive the vehicle, however there is no guarantee that the teenager may keep the safety and notification features enabled while driving the vehicle. Conventional vehicles fail to give parents, or other such primary driver, the option of preventing teenagers eligible to driver or other such secondary drivers from disabling safety and notification features.
In light of the foregoing, it is generally necessary to differentiate between the drivers so that a determination can be made as to when a particular vehicle system should prevent the disabling of such safety and notification features (or other features) in the event the driver is detected to be a teenager or other such secondary driver. Further, such a determination may be needed to ensure that the primary driver is allowed to disable the safety and notification features as desired. As recognized, the safety and notification features are generally arranged such that a primary driver may disable the features in the event such features are not desired and are not mandatorily imposed by law or other such ordinance.